American and British commuters tweeting habits: stats

There’s always a reason to tweet a new experience when using public transport and it’s now confirmed that both American and British commuters love tweeting.

Many of us know the challenges of using the public transport during rush hours and as there’s always a new story to tell, Twitter is usually our first platform to share it.

Brandwatch has decided to monitor the discussions taking place during daily commutes of a one-month period, measuring 65,000 mentions to understand what people mostly tweet about.

First of all, the analysis confirmed that commuters love tweeting while they’re taking public transport and apparently you never know what to expect from all the tweets.

Need to complain? Head to Twitter

Twitter rants are common for any possible reason and of course, it’s the first platform that we post about a delay, a strange behaviour, or simply another commuter that drew our attention.

When it comes to complaints about co-passengers, eating and a questionable choice of clothes grab our attention more than anything else, while talking or reading may also be considered annoying.

It seems that people get more easily annoyed when using the public transport, at a point that many of these complaints may be considered exaggerating.

Two people. Talking. On the Tube. In the morning. They’re clearly not from round here.

— Sean O’Brien (@seaneobrien) May 19, 2016

There are always tweets to surprise you, though.

Man sleep-talking on the train: “it’s just a fox, it’s just a fox, it’s just a fox, I wish I had barbecue sauce”.

— ✧ ･ﾟ* amanda *･ﾟ✧ (@AmandaFromSpace) May 9, 2016

Trains are more popular for tweets

It has been observed that people tweet more when using the subway or a train, comparing to a bus journey, although in Britain the use of Twitter on the tube is significantly lower.

Britain’s tweets while commuting

British commuters love tweeting during rush hours and it seems that trains inspire them to do so more than other journeys, as from the total 8517 mentions that have been numbered during a month, there were:

• 756 mentions of tube journeys
• 2072 mentions of bus journeys
• 5197 mentions of train journeys

When it comes to complaints about the behaviour of co-passengers, eating is again the first reason to tweet a complaint, while unpleasant smells come second in Britain and talking and reading following at a close rate.

Funny tweets from the UK on public transport:

The woman sitting beside me on the train is eating an apple and chewing with her mouth open, as well as having her shoes off 😡 #rage

— Rebecca Alexander (@RebeccaAlxander) May 18, 2016

There is this other woman on the train who took chewing gum out her mouth and fed it to her dog…

— Victoria Chater-Lea (@VictoriaChaters) May 18, 2016

There’s a man on the bus wearing triple denim and I’m not sure how I feel about that

— blee (@beccaamylee) May 18, 2016

the serious looking fifty something year old business man sat opposite me on the train is reading Harry Potter and it’s made me so happy

— franf (@franfurniss44) May 17, 2016

Why is the guy next to me on the train eating a scotch egg? Who eats a scotch egg at 9 o’clock in the morning?…

— Ⓜ️@❕ (@MattsMyName_) May 19, 2016